The Puppet Master and his Strings
by Jess Brook
Summary: The Story of one Sebastian Moran and James Moriarty, well known but twisted and turned beyond the truth. It hadn't bothered Moran, not until he was alone at which point it hit him, that both their names were lies and he was struck to set the story straight, end to end. Epic fiction from Moran's point of view, rated M for violence and foul language.
1. Prelude

There's a word that floats on the filthy air of London. It's everywhere, if you listen hard enough, not so much spoken but hinted at. The word itself is a name, but they speak of the concept, the idea of the man who bears the name. The next question everybody asks is 'what's the word' and I describing their expression when I finally tell them, all the links clicking together in their slow little heads.

The word? Moriarty.

But a few people understand who he is, everybody else understands the subtext. He's danger, life and death, the puppet master of the great city and if he decides something will happen, it will.

It always takes a moment, while they let it sink in that they've caught his attention but finally they come back to earth and look at me. That's always a killer, the moment they figure it all out. Some stumble off their chairs, others draw their guns and just every now or then under their breath one will mutter _my_ name 'Moran'.

I don't so much as have the myth he did but, our tales come as one. If he is the puppet master I am the strings, the closest he ever comes to a confidant and the top of a web spanning well beyond the city itself. I live a life that has me dancing the line of death daily, and pushing people over it with every other phone call. I'm an assassin, a commander and a right hand man to death himself. The story twists me into a brute, an animal with only the intelligence to do what I'm told. They're wrong, and just because I'll beguile you with what really happened, end to end. Clear his name as well as mine from the tarnish of incompetency.


	2. Chapter 1

When he found me, I was dead or as good as. I never actually recall leaving that bar in the years I drank there, no where in my head lies the memory of if or how I got home and night, although I always woke there.

My flat at the time was barely a cupboard, all that an army pension can afford you in central London. Not that it mattered, as I said I cannot recall returning at night and the size merely made it a shorter reach for the first drink of the morning. Between that first swig of vodka and returning to drunkenness I typically became quite the depressive. Nothing started the day quite so well as to consider throwing myself out the fifth story window, or perhaps fill the sink and attempt to drown myself. I would like to point out that sinks are not very good for drowning yourself in, but as my pitiful situation left with without a bath I could but try. Obviously I never succeeded, or truly tried but I imagine it was but a matter of time.

You read the stories all the time, former soldiers found dead. It's not a surprise, not really. What's ordinary life stood next to the thrill of the battle, it's of course just that, ordinary, safe and pedestrian. Curious that the battle keeps us alive, but it did, it was the nature of being a solider.

I was a sniper, special operations. Snipers work alone, they tended to be solitary people and I was, and am, no exception to that. There is only so long though, that we can handy our own minds alone. I'm personally accountable for more deaths than I dare number. Certainly I've killed more people than I've ever spoken to, but then I'm assured the vast majority of them wouldn't have made brilliant conversationalists regardless. Before you ask no, I wasn't crooked, not while I served. I didn't always do as per orders, but I got everybody in and everybody out, people who were meant to died but as per every good piece of theatre I improvised and some people, equally deserving of death, happened to die along the way. Apparently there is only so much 'insubordination' that the officers could deal with, regardless of my talent.

That was of course what led me to be sat there, well hanging there on the edge of a stool. Usual time, usual bar. I recall the rain beating down outside, or perhaps the fact I was soaking wet, and merely put two and two together at a later date.

I was mid way into my third drink maybe, the room was still fairly clear, when I was shoved by someone mounting the stool beside me. Of course I glared at him, he was much smaller, perhaps even weedy in his build. I couldn't tell you what I said, but the moment he looked back at me I smashed, or attempted to, my fist into his jaw.

Of course, I might well have been twice his size but size never mattered when I'd had enough to drink. My hand made contact, although not exactly where I would have placed it. It didn't take a moment for the other man to grab it, and twist it and himself behind my back.

I was knocked lucid by one feeling. Trapped between my back and his chest, a knife. Its cold steel ran across my major artery, threating gently before he pulled away. The man now, having at least intrigued me into lucidity gestured that we should go outside. Of course if it wasn't around mid day, the bar might have been filled with the sort of people who weren't solely concerned with their own drinking, and this sort of person may have stopped me stepping outside. I wouldn't have taken the man I followed to work out that I would indeed follow. Nothing like being closer to death to feel closer to life.

Outside the rain still poured down upon us and he finally turned, this other man and I caught his face. There was no anger, per say, he didn't quite want me dead. Without a doubt he was still a threat, his eyes bore the almost imperceptible darkness of a killer, as they say it takes one to know one.

"What do you-" I began, I might have been lucid, but lucid enough I was not.

Immediately the man before me rose his finger, his head cocking a few degrees to the left as he stared at me, daring me to look away. I didn't have the sense to be scared, staring back and literally down at him.

"You. Silent. Now." He uttered, calmly in an Irish brogue I can still _hear_, even today.

A moment passed, in the due silence he'd demanded from me but it wasn't long and on the street beside us a car pulled up. Black, BMW, dark windows. People always talk about the sort of cars, the ones that you wouldn't get into if your life depended on it, but as the shorter man gestured I suspected that my life very much did depend on it.


End file.
